A new site, built from published sources. Spotted a mistake? Please tell us
Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Music & dance

Annamacharya, Tyagaraja, Kuchipudi, Perini and the folk performance traditions.

About the sources. Music and dance leave few direct records. For most of Andhra’s history they have to be traced through carvings, temple inscriptions and the remarks of travellers. From the nineteenth century there are also district manuals and surveys of castes. This page follows that evidence from the Buddhist stupas (relic mounds) to the national movement. It also says plainly which parts of the story the sources used here do not yet cover.

Musicians in Buddhist sculpture

The earliest evidence is carved in stone. James Burgess described a pillar of the outer rail at the Amaravati stupa.1 It shows a scene filled with women: one plays the vina (a stringed instrument), and several seem to be dancing.1

A cross-bar from the same rail shows worshippers at a stupa with five men beside them.2 Two beat drums hung from their shoulders, and two play flutes.2 A coping-stone shows twelve or thirteen women playing instruments and dancing.3 In Burgess’s words, it is “unmistakably the representation of a nâch or dance”.3 On other slabs, heavenly musicians fly above the symbols of the Buddha.4

At Nagarjunakonda, capital of the Ikshvakus, A. H. Longhurst published a relief of the god Indra’s visit to the Buddha.5 In it, Indra’s musician Panchasikha plays the vina and sings. Some haloed figures in the scene cover their ears.5 J. Ph. Vogel took this as deep listening to divine music.5 Longhurst thought instead that they were refusing to hear Panchasikha’s love song in the Buddha’s presence.5

Temple music and dance, 1100–1300

Inscriptions show that temples employed musicians and dancers. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry cites a record of 1133 at Nadendla that lists 48 temple employees.6 Among them are singers and co-singers, flute players, a vina player and a dancer.6 A record of 1135 at Satuluru counts a male dancer among the temple artisans.6 One of 1269 at Durgi lists more than twenty people employed for the ranga-bhoga, the music and dance offered before the god.6

Women called sanis danced in the temple hall during these services.7 A Velpuru inscription records the gift of a woman as sani to the god Rameswara, with land and a house site for her.7 A record of 1271 comes from Eleswaram, now under the Nagarjunasagar reservoir. It records that a man named Mankisetti gave two of his granddaughters as sanis.7

Parabrahma Sastry argues that these women were not prostitutes, as they have often been taken to be.7 In his view they were married women who performed dance and music in the temple on behalf of donors.7 He notes that nritya (dance) and gita (song) counted among the sixteen services offered to a deity.7

The great Kakatiya temples were built with music in mind. At the Ramappa temple in Palampet, G. Yazdani found the ruined Nandi pavilion carved with rows of elephants and musicians.8 The panels on the outer walls show gods, warriors, acrobats, musicians and dancing girls.8

Four carved pillars at the centre of the hall enclose a square.9 Yazdani took it to be “the place for musicians and singers”.9 He also noted Krishna playing the flute in several places, and a dancing Ganesha on an architrave (the beam above the pillars).10 A neighbouring temple has a similar central square, “apparently to accommodate an orchestra for religious music”.11 In another, the bases of the central pillars carry figures of musicians and dancers.11

The temple’s foundation inscription of 1213 praises the town beside it (Palampet pillar inscription).12 In L. D. Barnett’s translation, one part of the town rang with “the sound of damsels’ songs mingled with the tones of the lute and pipe”.12 Another rang with verse and “novel musical performances”.12

The period also produced a work on dance. Jaya, a general of Ganapatideva, wrote the Sanskrit Nrittaratnavali.13 Parabrahma Sastry describes it as a work in eight chapters on dance and dramaturgy (the art of drama).13 It has a separate chapter on desi dance: the local and regional dances of Andhra in Ganapati’s time.13 Jaya is also said to have written works on music and on musical instruments, the Gitaratnavali and Vadyaratnavali.13

Parabrahma Sastry adds a view held by some experts on dance.14 They see the dancers and kolata (stick-dance) scenes carved on Kakatiya buildings as examples of the regional styles Jaya describes.14

Courts, temples and travellers, 1400–1700

At Tirupati, temple records of the 1530s show a family of temple singers.15 According to S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar’s history of Tirupati, an agreement of 1530 was made with Tallapakkam Tirumalai Aiyangar, son of Annamaiyangar.15 He was “the songster of the temple by special appointment”.15 The agreement mentions a sankirtana bhandara, a treasury holding Tirumalai Aiyangar’s songs.15 Krishnaswami Aiyangar adds that copper plates holding these songs were still kept in the temple when he wrote.15

Later records describe Tirumalai Aiyangar singing before the god and building pavilions at tanks.16 He also paid for services when the singing of his own compositions was completed.16 A record of 1540 from Mangapuram near Chandragiri says that his son set up images of the teachers of their tradition.17 Among them was his own teacher, Annamacharya.17

By 1941 the Tirupati temple committee was publishing these songs in a “Tallapakkam Series”.18 It printed two volumes of sankirtanas (devotional songs) by Tallapakkam Annamacharyulu, with about a thousand songs between them.18 The committee dated him 1408–1503.18

The same Tirupati records show dancers in temple service. In 1531 the Vijayanagara king Achyutaraya sent two dancing women from his capital to serve in the temple.19 Other women of the dancing community made gifts of their own.19

At the capital itself, the Portuguese visitor Domingos Paes saw a long hall where “the king sends his women to be taught to dance”.20 Its panels showed dancers in the closing position of each dance.20 If the pupils forgot a pose, they could check it there.20

A Telugu scholar of the east coast wrote one of the period’s main works on music theory.21 H. A. Popley describes the Ragavibodha of 1609 by Somanatha, “a Telugu Brahman of the East coast, probably of Rajamandry”.21 Somanatha sorted ragas into main ones and ones derived from them, as South Indian music still does.21

Telugu drama also began in this period.22 P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao name Vinukonda Vallabharaya’s Kridabhiramamu, set in Warangal.22 They call it the first Telugu work to render a Sanskrit drama as a drama, not as a narrative poem.22 They say the Vijayanagara poet Ramaraja Bhushana was “a great and accomplished musician”, and that his verse showed it.23

At Golconda, the evidence comes from chronicles and travellers. Ferishta writes that Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah fell in love with “a public singer of the name of Bhagmutty”.24 He named his new city, later Hyderabad, Bhagnagar after her.24

The English merchant William Methwold worked at Machilipatnam (then Masulipatam) from 1618 to 1622.25 He describes a community of dancers trained from childhood in dance and acrobatics.25 Once a year they gathered at the Golconda court to show their skill, and the best were rewarded.25 They also danced when the local governor held public court, and for pay at weddings, feasts and the arrival of ships.25 At temple festivals he saw puppet players and tumblers, and processions with drums, trumpets and oboes.26

An anonymous Dutch account adds more.27 Its writer had lived about six years at Nizampatnam.27 He says that in country under Hindu rulers, such women danced twice a day in the temples.27 Temple dancing was not the custom in the Golconda kingdom. Instead, the women were called each April to Bhagnagar to dance in memory of the first Qutb Shahi king.27

The French traveller Tavernier says Golconda had many registered courtesans.28 Some of them had to appear with their musicians every Friday before the royal balcony. They danced if the king was present.28

Two centuries later, Syed Ali Asgar Bilgrami explained the nickname of the last king, Abul Hasan Tana Shah.29 He said it referred to the king’s love of music.29 But he also offered a second, Telugu explanation.29

Tyagaraja, Kshetrayya and the southern courts

After the fall of Vijayanagara, Telugu-speaking dynasties ruled at Tanjore and Madurai.30 Telugu became a language of court literature and song in the Tamil country.30 Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao note that this “Southern school” produced more than twenty dramas in the eighteenth century alone.30 That was more than the Telugu heartland had produced in eight centuries.30

Among its authors they name Muddupalani, for her Telugu poem Radhika Svantam.31 They describe her as a courtesan of Pratapa Sinha of Thanjavur (then Tanjore).31 They call Tyagaraja the greatest gift of Thanjavur to Telugu literature.32 He was “the hymnologist and musician whose songs are sung all over South India”.32

C. R. Day wrote a survey in 1891.33 He wrote that since the fall of Vijayanagara, Thanjavur had been the only school of Hindu music in the south.33 A school of musicians there had reached its peak in “Tiagyaraj”.33

Day describes Tyagaraja as a native of “Trivadi” (Tiruvaiyaru) in Thanjavur district.34 Tyagaraja composed many sacred songs (kritis), which were popular throughout India.34 Day dates him to about 1820–1840.34 Popley, writing in 1921, gives about 1800–1850 instead.35 He says Tyagaraja brought in sangatis, step-by-step variations on a melody, and that most of his songs were kritis.35

Day used Telugu letters for the names of musical notes, “that being the most musical language of Southern India”.36 Day also lists “Kshetrya”, a poet and musician who composed “innumerable love songs called Pathams”.37 He notes musicians in the Telugu north too. A vina player from Sitapur was court scholar (asthana pandita) to the Maharaja of Vizianagaram.37

Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao defend another form, the javali or love song.38 It was looked down on because it was sung by “public women”.38 But they rank it as high poetry.38

Performers in the villages

Nineteenth-century district manuals describe many performing communities. In Visakhapatnam (then Vizagapatam), the Bhagavatulu were “dramatists” who acted several plays.39 Edgar Thurston records the Bhagavatulu as play-actors in the Telugu country.40 They took their name from the stories of the Bhagavatam that they performed.40

The Kurnool manual of 1886 says that popular plays were acted in the harvest season, chiefly the Bhagavatam, the story of Krishna.41 The actors were generally dancing girls, “but the principal actors belong to a Brahmin family of Kótakonda, in the Pattikonda Taluk, whose ancestors originally came from Kúchipadi in the Guntúr District”.41 This is the only notice of that place in connection with performance found in the sources used for this page.

Travelling players and puppeteers worked everywhere. In Anantapur, travelling players, usually of the Killekyata community, played scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata.42 They were paid in money, or in oil for the footlights. Girls danced the kolattam (a stick dance).42

In Kadapa (then Cuddapah), the kolattam was danced by youths as well as children.43 The shadow-puppet show called bommalatam was “very common”.43 Its paper figures were moved behind a lit cloth screen, while singers explained the action.43 Shadow puppet shows were also common in the Godavari district.44

In Visakhapatnam, groups met on Saturday evenings for Rama bhajanas, singing in praise of Rama.45 More on ballads, puppets and village drama is on the page Folk songs & oral traditions.

Song was part of village worship. In Kurnool, the drummers or singers called Bynenis, and the Asadis, led the procession of the goddess Peddamma, dancing as they went.46 The Asadis went on singing and dancing before her while the villagers brought their offerings.46 Henry Whitehead describes the Asadis as Mala families with the hereditary right to chant the praises of the village goddess during her festival.47

Ballad singers called Balasantas told the story of the siege of Bobbili and other tales.48 Siraj ul Hassan surveyed Hyderabad State.49 He describes the Bhatrajas as hereditary bards of the Velama and Kapu castes.49 He also describes a Bhagwat dance by a group of wandering Vaishnava beggar-monks.50 In it, a man dressed as a woman danced to the drum and cymbals.50

Professional dancers formed distinct communities. Siraj ul Hassan describes the Bogams, a Telugu community of dancers in Hyderabad State.51 They were professional dancers and musicians, trained from the age of seven or eight in singing, dancing and abhinaya (expressive gesture).51 A dancer sang to the music of a drum and two sarangis (bowed stringed instruments). Most of her songs were about Krishna.51

Thurston quoted the Vizagapatam manual.52 He defined the Telugu Sanis by prostitution as much as by dancing at feasts.52 As noted above, Parabrahma Sastry challenges that reading for the medieval temple dancers.7

Music at the Hyderabad shrines

In Hyderabad, music was tied to the Sufi shrines. Bilgrami records that the musician Khush-hal Khan built an arch, a tomb and an ashurkhana (hall for the Muharram ceremonies) on the procession route up the Moula Ali hill.53 Khush-hal Khan was the teacher of Mah Laqa Bai. Bilgrami calls him a master musician of his time.53

At the tomb of the saint Miranji Saheb there was a sama khana.54 This was a hall where a congregation gathered every year on the saint’s anniversary. They came to hear songs by master musicians, both men and women.54

Reform, the stage and the national movement

In the late nineteenth century, the custom of keeping dancing women came under attack.55 Kandukuri Veeresalingam of Rajahmundry campaigned in his journal Vivekavardhini.55 He attacked officials who kept dancing women as concubines.55 His biographer D. Anjaneyulu credits the campaign with beginning the decline of the custom’s respectability.55

Even so, at the first widow remarriage he conducted, Veeresalingam allowed a dance party in the procession.56 But he would not let it into his house.56 He also used the stage. He wrote more than forty short prose farces (prahasanams) that were acted.57 Several of them mocked the patrons of dancing women.57

In Hyderabad State, the 1931 census reported that girls were still being dedicated to deities.58 The Adi-Hindu Social Service League was campaigning against this through village meetings and caste councils.58

The national movement used music widely. Sarojini Regani writes that bhajans, sankirtans and morning processions were regular features of the non-cooperation campaign.59 Patriotic songs and ballads were sung at harikathas (religious story-telling), and beggars sang the national songs on their rounds.59

Garimella Satyanarayana’s songs against British rule earned him prison terms.60 Regani says farmers sang them in the evenings while playing kolattam.60 A political drama by Kodali Anjaneyulu was banned from the stage.61

Yamini Purna Tilakam was a woman of the professional dancing community.62 Under Gandhi’s influence she gave up her profession, and helped organise a hartal (strike).62 In Hyderabad, Regani adds, the Nizam’s government ordered a newly founded bhajan group at Mahabubnagar to break up.63 It also stopped new bhajan societies from being started.63

What this page does not yet cover

About the sources. The sources used here say little about several subjects of this theme. The tradition later known as Kuchipudi appears only in the single Kurnool notice above. Nothing citable has been found yet on Perini, on Annamacharya’s life and work beyond the Tirupati records, or on Kshetrayya’s background. The same is true of Tyagaraja’s song texts, the Hindustani music of the Asaf Jahi court, Burrakatha, and music and dance after 1947. The library’s main works on music, by Day (1891) and Popley (1921), survey South India as a whole and deal with Thanjavur, not the Telugu districts. These gaps will be filled as sources are added.

Footnotes

  1. James Burgess, The Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta (1887), p. 43 and pl. XXXII, fig. 1 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  2. Burgess, Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta (1887), p. 50 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  3. Burgess, Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta (1887), p. 59 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  4. Burgess, Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta (1887), p. 71 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  5. A. H. Longhurst, The Buddhist Antiquities of Nagarjunakonda (1938), pp. 48–49 and pl. XLIV (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  6. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), pp. 286–287 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  7. Parabrahma Sastry, Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 286 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  8. G. Yazdani, The Temples at Palampet (1922), p. 175 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  9. Yazdani, Temples at Palampet (1922), p. 176 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  10. Yazdani, Temples at Palampet (1922), p. 177 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  11. Yazdani, Temples at Palampet (1922), pp. 178, 180 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  12. Yazdani, Temples at Palampet (1922), p. 184, verse 38 in L. D. Barnett’s translation (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  13. Parabrahma Sastry, Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), pp. 294–295 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  14. Parabrahma Sastry, Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 303 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  15. S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, A History of Tirupati, Vol. II (1941), p. 216 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  16. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, History of Tirupati, Vol. II (1941), pp. 217–218, 266 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  17. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, History of Tirupati, Vol. II (1941), pp. 237–238, record No. 141 of 1540 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  18. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, History of Tirupati, Vol. II (1941), list of T. T. Devasthanams publications, PDF pp. 607–608 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  19. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, History of Tirupati, Vol. II (1941), pp. 216–218 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  20. Robert Sewell, A Forgotten Empire (1900), “Narrative of Domingos Paes” (Gutenberg (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  21. H. A. Popley, The Music of India (1921), p. 18 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  22. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 66 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  23. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 82 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  24. Ferishta, tr. J. Briggs, History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, Vol. III (1829), p. 335 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  25. W. H. Moreland (ed.), Relations of Golconda in the Early Seventeenth Century (1931), p. xxv (archive.org (opens in a new tab)) and pp. 17–18 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  26. Moreland, Relations of Golconda (1931), pp. 20–21 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  27. Moreland, Relations of Golconda (1931), p. xl (archive.org (opens in a new tab)) and pp. 71–72 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  28. J.-B. Tavernier, tr. V. Ball, Travels in India, Vol. I (1889), pp. 157–158 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  29. Syed Ali Asgar Bilgrami, Landmarks of the Deccan (1927), p. 181, note (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  30. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, History of Telugu Literature (1928), pp. 91, 94 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  31. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 92 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  32. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 92 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  33. C. R. Day, The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan (1891), p. 3 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  34. Day, Music of Southern India (1891), pp. 71, 155 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  35. Popley, Music of India (1921), pp. 22, 88 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  36. Day, Music of Southern India (1891), p. 30, note (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  37. Day, Music of Southern India (1891), p. 156 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  38. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao, History of Telugu Literature (1928), p. 100 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  39. D. F. Carmichael, A Manual of the District of Vizagapatam (1869), p. 67 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  40. Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Vol. I (1909), pp. 222–223 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  41. N. G. Chetty, A Manual of the Kurnool District (1886), p. 157 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  42. W. Francis, Madras District Gazetteers: Anantapur (1905), p. 32 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  43. C. F. Brackenbury, Madras District Gazetteers: Cuddapah (1915), pp. 62–63 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  44. F. R. Hemingway, Madras District Gazetteers: Godavari (1907), p. 45 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  45. W. Francis, Madras District Gazetteers: Vizagapatam (1907), p. 74 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  46. Chetty, Kurnool (1886), pp. 150–152 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  47. Henry Whitehead, The Village Gods of South India (1921), p. 44 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  48. Chetty, Kurnool (1886), p. 140 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)); Thurston, Castes and Tribes, Vol. I (1909), pp. 133–134 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  49. Syed Siraj ul Hassan, The Castes and Tribes of H.E.H. the Nizam’s Dominions, Vol. I (1920), p. 56 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  50. Siraj ul Hassan, Castes and Tribes (1920), p. 158 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  51. Siraj ul Hassan, Castes and Tribes (1920), pp. 94–95 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  52. Thurston, Castes and Tribes, Vol. VI (1909), p. 292 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  53. Bilgrami, Landmarks of the Deccan (1927), p. 16 and note (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  54. Bilgrami, Landmarks of the Deccan (1927), p. 61 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  55. D. Anjaneyulu, Kandukuri Veeresalingam (1976), pp. 19–20 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  56. Anjaneyulu, Veeresalingam (1976), p. 34 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  57. Anjaneyulu, Veeresalingam (1976), pp. 81–82 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  58. Census of India 1931, Vol. XXIII: H.E.H. the Nizam’s Dominions, Part I: Report (1933), appendix, p. 237 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  59. Sarojini Regani, Highlights of the Freedom Movement in Andhra Pradesh (1956), p. 75 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  60. Regani, Highlights (1956), pp. 75–76 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  61. Regani, Highlights (1956), p. 78 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  62. Regani, Highlights (1956), pp. 72, 89 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  63. Regani, Highlights (1956), p. 173 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

People

Jaya (Jayapa)

c. 1209–1253 CE

General and minister of the Kakatiya king Ganapatideva, of the Ayya family of Divi. Ganapati married his two sisters and made him commander of the elephant troops and governor of Velanadu. He built the Ganapesvara temple on Divi in 1231 and wrote the Nritta Ratnavali, a Sanskrit treatise on dance.

Singabhupala (Recherla)

c. 1384–1399 CE

Recherla Velama king of Rachakonda (late 14th century), son of Anapota Nayaka. He wrote the Rasarnavasudhakara, a Sanskrit book on drama whose opening verses are the fullest early account of his family. Later tradition calls him, or a namesake of the next century, Sarvajna ('the all-knowing') Singa, patron of Srinatha and Potana. Who was who is disputed.

Kumaragiri Reddi

c. 1386–1402 CE

Reddi king of Kondavidu (c. 1386–1402), son of Anavota. He is remembered for his spring festival and his court's foreign trade, and as the patron after whom Kataya Vema named his commentary on Kalidasa. He gave the Godavari country around Rajahmundry to his minister and brother-in-law Kataya Vema. At the end of his reign he lost Kondavidu to his kinsman Peda Komati Vema.

Peda Komati Vema

c. 1402–1420 CE

Fifth Reddi king of Kondavidu (c. 1402–1420), a grandson of Prolaya Vema's elder brother Macha, known as a scholar-king. The Sringaradipika commentary on the Amarusataka and other works are ascribed to him, and the poet Srinatha served him as vidyadhikarin and composed his grants. His reign was spent in wars with the Rajahmundry Reddis, Vijayanagara and the Recherla Velamas.

Kshetrayya

Telugu poet and composer of padams, love songs on Radha and Krishna, sung by dancers and musicians across South India. K. Sitaramaiya and P. T. Raju place him in the 17th century, at the time of Vijayaraghava Nayaka of Thanjavur. C. R. Day in 1891 called him the most popular composer of padams.

Raghunatha Nayaka of Thanjavur

Telugu Nayaka ruler of Thanjavur (then Tanjore) in the early 17th century, himself a poet in Telugu and Sanskrit and a writer on music. His court began the 'Southern school' of Telugu literature: his own Valmiki Charitramu was an early Telugu prose work, and Chemakura Venkatakavi wrote the Vijayavilasamu there. Poems by his son, his minister and a woman poet of his court describe his wars for the Vijayanagara throne.

Ramarajabhushana (Bhattumurti)

Telugu poet of the later 16th century, author of the Vasucharitramu, the story of King Vasu's marriage told in verse full of double meanings, which became the model for later poets. His title means 'ornament of Rama Raja's court'; his own name was Bhattumurti. He dedicated the Vasucharitramu to Tirumala Raya and a book on poetics, the Narasabhupaliyamu, to Rama Raya's nephew. Scholars long argued whether the two names belong to one poet.

Tallapaka Annamacharya

Telugu composer of devotional songs (sankirtanas) to the god Venkatesvara of Tirupati, the first of the Tallapaka family of temple poets. The Tirupati temple dated him 1408–1503 when it printed his songs in 1941. Temple records of 1530–1558, studied by S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, show his son Tirumalai Aiyangar as the temple's appointed singer, and his grandson setting up his image as a teacher.

Tyagaraja

Telugu singer, poet and composer of Tiruvaiyaru in Thanjavur district, whose devotional songs (kritis and kirtanas) to Rama are sung all over South India. C. R. Day in 1891 dated him about 1820–1840 and H. A. Popley in 1921 about 1800–1850, while P. T. Raju placed him in the 18th century. Chenchiah and Bhujanga Rao called him the greatest gift of Thanjavur to Telugu literature.

Vijayaraghava Nayaka of Thanjavur

Telugu Nayaka ruler of Thanjavur (then Tanjore), son of Raghunatha Nayaka, and himself an author of Telugu plays, among them a Raghunathabhyudayamu in praise of his father. K. Sitaramaiya and P. T. Raju name him as the patron of the song-composer Kshetrayya. A Telugu chronicle of the Thanjavur kings tells how he refused a marriage alliance with the Nayaka of Madurai and died fighting when Madurai's army stormed Thanjavur.

Vinukonda Vallabharaya

Telugu poet of the 15th century, governor of Vinukonda under the Vijayanagara king Devaraya II, named as the author of the Kridabhiramamu, a lively tour of the streets of Warangal told as a play. His family served the Vijayanagara kings from Bukka I onward as ministers, generals and keepers of the royal jewels. P. T. Raju and K. Sitaramaiya give the Kridabhiramamu to Srinatha instead.

Monuments

Ramappa Temple

1213 CE

The Rudreshvara temple at Palampet, founded by the Kakatiya general Recherla Rudra in 1213 beside the Ramappa lake. It is famous for its bracket figures, carved dark-stone pillars and lightweight brick tower. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2021.

References

Sources (26)
  1. James Burgess, The Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta in the Krishna District, Madras Presidency, Surveyed in 1882 (opens in a new tab), Trübner & Co. for the Archaeological Survey of Southern India, 1887, pp. 43, 50, 59, 71. [Public domain]
  2. A. H. Longhurst, The Buddhist Antiquities of Nagarjunakonda, Madras Presidency (Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India No. 54) (opens in a new tab), Manager of Publications, Delhi, 1938, pp. 48–49. [Public domain in India]
  3. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal, Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1978, pp. 286–287, 294–295, 303. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  4. G. Yazdani, The Temples at Palampet (Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India, No. 6) (opens in a new tab), Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 1922, pp. 175–178, 180, 184. [Public domain]
  5. S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, A History of Tirupati, Vol. II (Sri Venkateswara Oriental Institute Series) (opens in a new tab), Tirumalai-Tirupati Devasthanam Committee, Madras, 1941, pp. 216–218, 237–238, 266; publications list (PDF pp. 607–608). Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  6. Robert Sewell, A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India (opens in a new tab), Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London, 1900, Narrative of Domingos Paes. [Public domain]
  7. H. A. Popley, The Music of India (The Heritage of India Series) (opens in a new tab), Association Press, Calcutta / Oxford University Press, 1921, pp. 18, 22, 88, 91. [Public domain]
  8. P. Chenchiah and Raja M. Bhujanga Rao, A History of Telugu Literature (The Heritage of India Series) (opens in a new tab), Association Press (Y.M.C.A.), Calcutta / Oxford University Press, London, 1928, pp. 7, 40, 66, 82, 92, 94, 100–101. [Public domain]
  9. Muhammad Qasim Ferishta (tr. John Briggs), History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India till the Year A.D. 1612, Vol. III (opens in a new tab), Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, London, 1829, pp. 335. [Public domain]
  10. W. H. Moreland (ed.), Relations of Golconda in the Early Seventeenth Century (Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., No. 66) (opens in a new tab), Hakluyt Society, London, 1931, xxv, xl, 17–18, 20–21, 71–72. [Public domain in India]
  11. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (tr. V. Ball), Travels in India, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Macmillan & Co., London, 1889, pp. 157–158. [Public domain]
  12. Syed Ali Asgar Bilgrami, Landmarks of the Deccan: A Comprehensive Guide to the Archaeological Remains of the City and Suburbs of Hyderabad (opens in a new tab), Government Central Press, Hyderabad-Deccan, 1927, pp. 16, 61, 181. [Public domain]
  13. C. R. Day, The Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India and the Deccan (opens in a new tab), Novello, Ewer & Co., London and New York, 1891, pp. 3, 30, 71, 155–156. [Public domain]
  14. Narahari Gopalakristnamah Chetty, A Manual of the Kurnool District in the Presidency of Madras (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1886, pp. 140, 150–152, 157. [Public domain]
  15. D. F. Carmichael, A Manual of the District of Vizagapatam in the Presidency of Madras (opens in a new tab), Government of Madras (Asylum Press), 1869, pp. 67. [Public domain]
  16. Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Vol. I (A and B) (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1909, pp. 133–134, 222–224. [Public domain]
  17. Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Vol. VI (P to S) (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1909, pp. 292. [Public domain]
  18. W. Francis, Madras District Gazetteers: Anantapur (opens in a new tab), Government of Madras (Addison & Co.), 1905, pp. 32. [Public domain]
  19. W. Francis, Madras District Gazetteers: Vizagapatam, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1907, pp. 74. [Public domain]
  20. C. F. Brackenbury, Madras District Gazetteers: Cuddapah, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1915, pp. 62–63. [Public domain]
  21. F. R. Hemingway, Madras District Gazetteers: Godavari, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1907, pp. 45. [Public domain]
  22. Henry Whitehead, The Village Gods of South India (2nd ed.) (opens in a new tab), Association Press, Calcutta / Oxford University Press, 1921, pp. 44. [Public domain]
  23. Syed Siraj ul Hassan, The Castes and Tribes of H.E.H. the Nizam's Dominions, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Times Press, Bombay, 1920, pp. 56, 94–95, 158. [Public domain]
  24. D. Anjaneyulu, Kandukuri Veeresalingam (opens in a new tab), Publications Division, Government of India, 1976, pp. 19–20, 34, 81–82. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  25. Sarojini Regani, Highlights of the Freedom Movement in Andhra Pradesh (opens in a new tab), Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, 1956, pp. 72, 75–76, 78, 89, 173. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  26. Khan, Gulam Ahmad, Census of India 1931 vol.23 H.E.H. the Nizamʼs dominions (Hyderabad State); pt.1- Report (opens in a new tab), 1933, appendix, 237. [Public domain]

Spotted an error on this page? Tell us

Last updated: